Thursday, November 6, 2014

On Thursday (10/23) night I did my starter of WLP013 for the Imperial Stout, and it was my first FermCapS adventure. Zero foam from the starter wort? Zero threat of exploding starter with the flask... well here is a picture:

Not sure why I waited so long to get FermCapS. I am now fully sold on the awesomeness.

Today is the brew day, and we're coordinating getting strike water heated, plus making nachos and prepping chicken wings and turkey burgers for later in the afternoon. Here is my friend Dain doing the nacho prep, hockey on TV and brewing equipment around. Waiting on the strike water.

Milling the grain!

We did 25lbs before, so space in the MT isn't a concern today. Not one bit. This is the cooler with the grain in it:

Strike water gonna take a bit to reach the appropriate temp on the stove, but using two burners and having adequate distractions should suffice.

I intended the focus on the temp, but the first picture I took turned out like this. I prefer this one. The ladies enjoying some beer & hockey while Dain and I prep food and get brewin. I love days like this. I think the temp was around 130 there so getting closer.

For a while not a lot happened. Milled the grain, prepped strike water, the usual. Fortunately we have good beer, good people, hockey, and good food. We're not in a rush today. Not at all.

Trying to get my dog to jump. He jumps all the fucking time, except when you want him to.

Ah there he goes!

Ok back to the brewing!

For the Imperial we wound up with 4.5gals into the bucket at a gravity of 1.11. We used 2oz Challenger @60 and 2oz EKG @20. Used a 2L starter of WLP013. I thought about using Whirlfloc, but the color is so damn dark and laziness had taken hold so I didn't bother.

Ground water was a bit warm, so I got it down to 80F and then put it in the bucket, and into the swamp cooler to drop to pitch temps. Pitched about 4 hours later.

Aeration is still something I need to work on. As is, shaking like crazy is all I've got. Not ideal, but it has worked well for me so far. Christmas is coming, so maybe better aeration methods will be available for my next partigyle party in a few months!

For the second runnings we wound up at 5gals into the bucket at 1.040 post-boil. Used 1oz Willamette @ FWH. Single packet rehydrated S-04. Not sure what it'll be like, but we'll find out!

Same deal with chilling this one down. No second swamp cooler setup for this one, but I put it in a cool place (ambient around 60F) and pitched the next morning. Best I could do, but I've done it before with good results so not worried.

This took entirely too long to post, but with Halloween and whatnot, life got a little hectic in the post-brewing period and I didn't have time to look at the pictures, etc. I also didn't take nearly as many pictures as I wanted to, and I've decided next Partigyle Party I need to ask for a volunteer to just take a mess of pictures. Since I'm making sure the numbers work out and trying to not fuck things up in front of other people, I tend to get distracted and not take many pictures to document the process.

But this is all for fun anyway, so no big deal. We got to watch the Sharks game, and then the Giants game, so that was great. Had a couple other friends show up later in the day, but by then I was done with the camera entirely. Oh well, they still had food and beer too so theres that at least.

Next up, a side by side picture of my two beers from the first partigyle party. Somehow I forgot to fucking do that a month ago, but it's ok! They're better now anyway. Funny how time and cold clear 'em up so purdy.